Thursday, June 13, 2013

Fried Ice Cream

I am not into the sappy romances.
Every time I watch a romantic comedy, and it comes to the cutesy
ending scene, I get all squirmy and hide under a blanket until it’s
over.

Really mature, I know.

For this reason, I’m not Nicholas
Sparks’ biggest fan. I don’t have anything against him, but I
have a hard time controlling my scoffs and eye-rolls during his books
and movies when things get cheesy (which is often).

However,
Sparks’ book Safe Haven (which is also a movie that came out
this year) caught my attention because it mentions Fried Ice Cream.
And I really wanted to make fried ice cream.

When the couple is talking about going
to a local carnival (which in the movie is changed to a parade), the
dashing male love interest, Alex, says to the mysterious, beautiful
out-of-towner, Katie,

“‘And if you ask me nice, I’ll
treat you to some deep-fried ice cream.’

“‘Fried ice cream? It sounds
disgusting.’

“‘It’s actually tasty.’”

(I forgot to write down the page number
before I went out of the country, but it’s toward the end of the
book, before the climax.)

Yeah, that’s not a very big role that
my little treat plays, but like I said, I really wanted to
make fried ice cream.

“But fried ice cream?” you
ask. “Come on, that isn’t possible.”

Actually, it is.
And it’s super easy. And delicious.

For the recipe, I just followed this
video:

But if you want it written out, here’s
the recipe. It looks way more complicated than it really is, I
promise.

Line a cookie sheet with waxed
paper. Place 8 scoops of ice cream on the waxed paper. Place in
freezer and freeze for 1 hour.

Place cornflakes in a gallon
ziplock bag and roll over them with a rolling pin until mostly
crushed, but not powder. Pour into a medium bowl. Mix egg whites
and water in a bowl until combined.

Remove ice cream balls from
freezer. Moving quickly, pick up each ball of ice cream and roll it
in the egg whites until completely covered. Then roll in the corn
flakes. You may do this process twice if you want a crispier outer
shell for your fried ice cream (recommended!). When all of the ice
cream balls are coated, return to the freezer immediately. Freeze
for 3 hours, to make sure the ice cream gets very hard. Otherwise
it will turn into a puddle when it is fried!

When the 3 hours are up, heat
about an inch of oil in a pan (the video says 4 inches -- you don't need that much!). You don’t want your oil to be
crazy-hot. I waited until I could see the oil start to get swirly –
not quite boiling, but definitely moving. Drop a drop or two of
water in the oil – If it immediately bubbles, the oil is ready.

Only remove your ice cream from
the freezer as-needed. I chose to fry the ice cream one at a time
to be safe. Keep the rest in the freezer because, duh, it’s ice
cream, and you don’t want it to melt.

Drop an ice
cream ball into the oil and use a slotted spoon to turn it over in
the oil so it cooks on all sides. The corn flakes will turn
slightly darker brown and will feel crisper. Remove from the oil
after 30 seconds. Don’t go much longer, or
it won’t be ice cream anymore!

Place ice cream in a bed of paper
towels and blot a little to remove excess oil. Then place in
serving dish. Top with a swirl of honey, a dollop of whipped cream, a couple shakes of cinnamon, and a cherry. Then you are free to enjoy this
hot-and-cold, sweet-and-salty treat!

Before freezing the second time

Frying!

It sounds complicated written out, but
I promise it’s not. Just watch video like I did and you’ll be
fine.

A cool thing about this treat is that once you freeze the ice
cream with the egg whites and cornflakes on them, you can keep them
in the freezer and pull out an ice cream ball to fry whenever you
want!
Perfect for serving at small parties when you want to show off!